You remind me a lot of Paul. One of the first runners I started working with. He was running his 5ks in the mid 19 minutes. To be fair to Paul we’ve now done 8 training plans together but at no point as he reached the points you’ll be hitting in this plan.

That’s why it gives me optimism you can achieve similar results, but get there faster. Paul just ran a 5k PB of 17:39 and his marathon time stands at 2:56 (Chester 2025).

He’s a similar build, similar age and similar ability level. You both are very determined as well.

So I’m hoping we can achieve similar times together.

This plan. We jump from around 150pts per week to 160pts. The theory being the more pts you earn, the fitter, faster and stronger you become. Progressive overload in it’s simplest form.

The sessions evolve as the weeks tick by becoming more and more specific. So we start off with some speed work, then slowly working on some threshold sessions, before dropping the pace, but increase the mileage and specificity with half marathon and then marathon paced sessions.

There are 4 big weekend marathon sessions in there to get that pace dialled in.

I’ve not given any priority to Berlin half. Simply because if we did and added in a taper and recovery week for that it would significantly impact your London prep. That’s the point of the plan we want to be working hard, so don’t want to be tapering for a half.

You can still hit Berlin hard, and that week is lower in points, but we can’t put too much emphasis on it my opinion. If your goals are slightly different and you want to focus more on Berlin we might have to change it slightly.

Hopefully the routine works well. If you wanted an extra rest day you could possible combine your S&C with a run day. Monday or Saturday perhaps? But that can change from one week to the next depending how you feel.

There will always be 3 easy runs days in there, to keep the legs ticking over and hopefully keep you fresh for the big sessions. Ultimately that’s where the magic happens and those sessions are like a race in themselves, in that they are very important for your progress.

Work hard in those tough moments and you will make the gains. Excited to see what this plan brings. We are planning on travelling up to London to watch again this year!! Already looking forward to it.

Trust the process, work hard in those key sessions and don’t put too much pressure on yourself.

I like the quote by Steve Davis “Play as if it means nothing, when it means everything”. Same applies to running and London.